Mermaid's Kiss
by Mikauzoran
Summary: The MK gang hits the beach, and Akako takes the opportunity to go mermaid hunting. In the middle of the night, she runs into Hakuba Saguru, brooding over unrequited love, and decides to tease him into a better mood. In the process she learns much about herself and even more about him.


Mikau: Hi all. I've been trying to write more lately, but it's not going well. ^.^; Fortunately over on the Poirot Café forum, we're going to be having a Finish It event coming up where we work really hard on pieces that have fallen by the wayside or just not gotten the kind of attention they need lately. I don't know what I'm going to work on for that event yet, but I should get _some_ work done, so… But today's piece was done for Poirot Café's Contest 28: Rare Pair. I actually started this one for the Mermaid contest, but it got too long. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, Akako and Hakuba would get more screen time and character development. They really are awesome characters.

…

Mermaid's Kiss

"What are you still doing up?" Akako purred as she stepped out onto the balcony, the sea air coating her lips with the sting of salt as she spoke.

Saguru inclined his head towards her, but the rest of his body remained facing the ocean. He gave an absentminded hum, still lost among his thoughts. "I just couldn't sleep."

Akako sneered. "Oh? Is it too tempting for you, sleeping in the same room all alone with your crush on this romantic island paradise?"

Saguru looked back out at the dark waters, barely distinguishable from the black expanse of sky. His face slowly morphed into a brooding expression.

Akako pursed her lips in mild annoyance before trying another angle. She _would_ get a reaction out of him.

"Kaito sure was something in that speedo today, huh?" She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "Doesn't Kaito make your skin tingle, running around practically naked like that? I know Kaito gives _me_ all kinds of ideas…. Does your self-restraint fare any better?"

Saguru snorted, straightening up a little. "Kaito is a tease, and he knows it," he muttered ruefully.

"I got you to call him 'Kaito'," Akako teased, grinning in triumph.

He chuckled wryly as he replied, "Akako-san, it's three o'clock in the morning. Don't you have some witchcraft to attend to? Surely you have something more important to do than torment me."

"Not at the moment." She cast him a demure smile, feigning innocence, but he wasn't looking.

Saguru sighed and went back to leaning against the railing, staring out at the varying shades of navy and indigo. "If you must know, I'm not in the least bit tempted, sleeping in the same room as him," he declared.

"Of course not," she snickered incredulously. "Because you're a perfect gentleman."

"Because I know how thin the ice I'm standing on is," Saguru continued remorsefully, ignoring her tone of mockery. "If he ever realizes the nature of my feelings for him, if I ever misstep and cause him to call my intentions into question, that's it. I'll lose what little I have of him in a devastating barrage of homophobic slurs that I may never recover from."

Akako's own eyes widened as she took in the tortured expression in his, the bitterness of his words, the inner turmoil written on his face. She hadn't been prepared for this, and so she had no response—witty, teasing, or otherwise—with which to fill the silence when he paused to mentally regroup.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he sought for a way to take back what he had said or at least to dissipate the awkward atmosphere it had created.

In a half-joking tone he added, "And so I'm nursing my wounds out here. It's good for those disappointed in love to stare out at the ocean, get a sense of the enormity of the rest of the universe and how small their suffering really is."

He snuck a quick glance at her, trying to judge the effect of his words.

She looked troubled. There would be no shrugging this off because she was on to him.

"Honestly," he whispered, resting his forehead on his forearms, propped up on the railing. "I find it reassuring to know that there's an escape if it gets to be too bad. I wasn't going to jump or anything, but it's oddly calming to do things like peer over the edge of a building every once in a while, reassuring to know that there's a knife in the drawer…. Why am I telling you this?" He looked up at her and frowned before quickly looking away. He could never look straight at her for too long or else his IQ started to plunge.

"Because it's three in the morning," she helpfully supplied, for once without any kind of ulterior motive. "…Is it really that bad?" Akako inquired softly, settling in beside him up against the railing.

"Sometimes," Saguru mumbled. "Certain things set me off; otherwise I'm perfectly fine. Today…today was a bad day watching him with Aoko-san, laughing and smiling with her, pining after her…"

He shook his head, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I just need to get away from you people, find some nice, normal man or woman to spend my life with because, as it stands, the man I love is stubbornly devoted to a woman whom he can never actually be with, and the woman I'm interested in is a goner for the man I love too."

Akako's brow furrowed, and her mouth set into a thin line of annoyance as she poked her friend's shoulder a little harder than necessary. "Who's this woman? I've never heard about you being interested in a woman. Is it Nakamori-san?"

Saguru shook his head and laughed at the irony of the situation. "Not at all. …Do you really want me to tell you?"

"Yes," she answered immediately—flatly but with a drop of menace.

He turned to smile jocosely at her. "You." He turned away before his brain could turn to mush as a result of her love slave charm.

She stared at him, unsure if she should laugh, panic, or swat him and tell him to be serious.

She studied him as he chuckled to himself in a sort of half-insane manner. She couldn't tell if he were in earnest or if this were all a big joke, so she settled on a fairly neutral but unconvinced response: "Really?"

He laughed softly, still gazing out at the ocean. He was pretty sure that this was one of the stages of grief: hysteric despair.

"Yes." His reply held a hint of warmth and affection for her.

" _Really_?" she asked again, a little more skeptically.

"Yes," he confirmed. "I find myself to be a little in love with you."

"A little," Akako repeated, feeling like a parrot, and a dumb one at that.

"Yes. A little. Not quite like what I feel for…" He trailed off and then picked up on another train of thought. "—But only when I don't look at you."

Akako blinked slowly, trying to process how she felt about all this. She still wasn't quite sure she should take him at his word. "Wait. When you _don't_ look at me, you love me?"

"Correct. Because when I do look at you, I find myself falling into slavish idiocy," he explained.

"And that's _not_ love?" she scoffed, rolling her eyes. He was teasing her, getting back at her for all the times she'd gone out of her way to make him miserable.

"No, it's really not," he informed, voice soft and low like a caress.

The feeling in his voice alarmed her. It was unfamiliar, foreign to her.

"What the other men in your life feel for you while they're under that charm of yours isn't real love. There's no substance to it. They may trip over themselves for you while they're under its effects, but take the spell away, and there's no deep, selfless bond there. There's no mutual understanding or respect or even a desire to give everything one can for another's happiness. What you know is not love…and it's not what you want, either."

An involuntary shiver raced down Akako's spine. She didn't like this. She wanted to go back to ruthlessly teasing the Brit about his feelings for their common crush. She didn't need him pontificating at her about true love. She'd had enough fairytale stories during her childhood to last the rest of her lifetime.

"Not that I presume anything where you're concerned, of course," Saguru went on, cutting through her spiraling thoughts. "I have no secret hopes of winning you and no intention to woo you, so you need not trouble yourself over giving me any kind of answer. This isn't a confession, so if you're more comfortable pretending we never had this discussion, that's perfectly fine."

"Why not?" Akako found herself sulking to her own surprise. She wasn't sure why, but his whole attitude towards his feelings for her bothered her.

"Beg pardon?" Saguru turned to blink owlishly at her.

"Why don't you presume and why don't you have any hope?" she demanded, offended at his half-heartedness. "Why don't you want an answer?"

Saguru continued to look at her in surprise for as long as he could manage before the charm started to set in. "You have so many admirers at your beck and call; what need have you of me? Besides, even if there weren't your fan club to consider, there's Kuroba. You're in love with _him_ , and I don't pretend to be any kind of acceptable substitute."

She snorted, muttering under her breath, "Like any of that is getting me anywhere."

"I didn't say that it was," he responded, despite the fact that her words hadn't been meant for him. "I simply stated the facts as to why I harbor no delusions of my feelings ever coming to fruition."

She silently fumed, glaring out at the ocean, unsure of _why_ she was so irritated, but still vexed all the same.

"And why exactly are you still up, Akako-san? I never asked," Saguru inquired to break up the awkward silence that had fallen between them.

"I needed to go out and gather some rare supplies," she informed, quickly adopting her impenetrable, mischievous air. "…I'm going mermaid hunting."

Saguru blinked slowly, waiting for her to cackle at his bewildered expression.

She did so, daintily holding her hand up in front of her mouth, her palm facing out towards him. "Oh, I know what you're thinking. 'Mermaids aren't real.' …But isn't that what you thought about witches before you met me?"

"Do you and Kuroba delight in mercilessly smashing my concept of reality?" Saguru sighed, casting her a quizzical glance.

"Yes," she replied pertly. "At least I do, and given his mischievous, sadistic tendencies, I'd wager Kaito does too."

Saguru pressed his lips together and considered a bit before deciding, "No, I simply can't believe in mermaids. Witches and magic gems are my limit, so you'll have to try mermaids on someone else. May I suggest Keiko-san?"

Akako rolled her eyes as a partially amused grin spread across her lips. "Be that way, you stubborn man, but mermaids _are_ real, and they're a very valuable component of many a useful spell. Eating mermaid flesh is said to grant immortality while bathing in mermaid blood is good for the skin. Mermaid eyes are needed for a wide variety of spells, and while you can often substitute kappa eyes, it's much more potent with mermaid. The tears can be harvested for potions as well, and mermaid teeth make powerful totems."

Seeing the horrified curiosity on Saguru's pale face, Akako kept going, slipping into a playful tone. "Yes, mermaids are very versatile, highly prized for many reasons, but I'd have to say that one of the most sought-after aspects of the mermaid is her kiss."

Saguru's hesitant credulity turned right back into disbelief. "Her kiss," he repeated skeptically.

Akako nodded, sidling up to him. "Mmhm. They say a mermaid's kiss can make you irresistible," she whispered breathily, aiming to entice him.

He only scoffed. "Have you kissed a mermaid, then?"

"I've never needed to," she replied proudly, a little offended at the assumption.

"You're just naturally a human bug zapper?" he wondered, half in earnest and partially just to annoy her.

She ignored his question and repaid his teasing with some of her own. "You should come with me mermaid hunting. I'll hold her down while you kiss her, and then you can have any woman you want…or man, if you'd rather. What do you say?" she snickered. "Wouldn't you like to finally be able to make Kaito sit up and pay attention?"

"Don't tease so, Akako-san," he muttered, turning so that she was left talking to his shoulder. "It's not kind."

" _I'm_ not kind," she reminded.

"There's where you're wrong." He peeked back at her with a knowing look. "You could be kind, and you very often are to those you like…when no one is looking. You're very loyal, Akako-san, and very attentive. You just don't want anyone to know that you're secretly a good person."

Akako wanted to refute it, but she couldn't find the words to a compelling rebuttal because she was too busy wondering how long he had been paying attention, how closely he had been watching her to know her so well.

Oblivious to Akako's whirling thoughts, Saguru kept going: "Your mermaid hunt doesn't really make a lick of difference to me anyway because I would never want to be irresistible."

"Why not?" Akako challenged, her heart beginning to race and her stomach to churn at the building tension. The color rose in her cheeks as she prepared to be insulted. She didn't imagine he had anything nice to say about her and the rest of her irresistible kind.

"It wouldn't be real," Saguru replied softly, turning to smile sadly at her as long as he could stand it before her charms started to take effect. "Even if Kuroba knelt down and asked for my hand, swearing life, love, and allegiance, it would all be fake, and who would be happy living that lie? He wouldn't be asking to marry _me_. Being irresistible wouldn't make him care about _me_. Underneath it all, it's just the spell taking over that beautiful mind of his and desecrating it. So I wouldn't want to be irresistible. It wouldn't be real, and that's not good enough…as you well know," he added with a sigh.

Akako's heart leapt as his words cut right through her. Somehow he saw her thoughts, knew her innermost feelings, and that made Akako's entire body burn with fear, embarrassment, and just the tiniest bit of joy. She didn't want anyone else to see through her like Kaito did. She was afraid to let anyone else truly know her, and yet, at the same time, it was a huge relief that another human being understood how she felt.

"That's why you're so drawn to Kuroba," Saguru explained, fixing his gaze on the black smudge on the horizon that he knew to be another island. "He's the only person capable of truly loving you because he's the only one who has any choice in the matter."

She was silent for a long time, and he didn't find himself inclined to break the tranquil lull that had fallen between them, so he waited, staring out at the almost formless shades of purple, blue, and grey, until she was ready to speak.

"…Do you really care?" Akako whispered down at the warped, wooden boards of the deck.

"Sorry?" He cast her a quick, sidelong glance. "About what?"

She swallowed hard, the salty air making her dry mouth tingle. "…Me. Do you really care about me, or were you just messing with me earlier? It's fine if you were," she quickly added, looking away on the off chance he could see her cheeks stained rose with sheepish hope in the darkness. "I mean, I always fool around with you, teasing you just to get a reaction, so…"

"O-Oh." Saguru shifted uneasily, rubbing the back of his neck as he fumbled out an answer. "No. I…was quite serious, I'm afraid. I do find myself a little bit in love with you…when I don't look at you, I mean. But you needn't worry about that. I was also serious when I said I didn't have any hope or plans or intentions, so there's no need to trouble with any kind of answer. I don't expect anything from you."

She shook her head in frustration and demanded, "How can you love a girl if you don't look at her? I swear, Saguru-kun, you're the most backward man I've ever met."

She wanted to hit him, he was so infuriating. His lack of conviction, his defeatist attitude got on her nerves, and then he had the gall to declare himself infatuated with her notwithstanding her looks. All she had going for her was her beauty. She was wicked, selfish, perverse, conniving, cruel, and sadistic. There was nothing for a goody two-shoes like him _to_ like other than her face and her body. And yet he claimed affection only when he didn't look at her.

"You mistake me," he chuckled gently. "Or rather, you mistake the meaning of 'love'. Akako-san, I'm not talking about physical attraction. I'm well aware that you're lovely, but the love I'm talking about, how I feel for you, has little to do with your looks."

Akako turned to stare, utterly baffled, at his profile. She was lost. The only "love" she knew of required physical attraction, lust, obsession.

He laughed again, and it annoyed her despite its warmth and affection.

"Akako-san, blind people can fall in love, can't they? Even though they can't see their partners?"

She blinked. "Yes, I suppose they do."

"How do the blind come to love when physical attraction doesn't come into play like it does for those of us with sight?" he continued to press her.

Akako considered, all the while thinking, "This is why they killed Socrates. It's obnoxious, having your beliefs challenged, having to defend them."

"I suppose they like other things about the people they fall in love with," she finally answered. "Their voices, if what they say is interesting, if they're nice to them, and things like that…. Right?"

How was she supposed to know? She'd only ever liked one person, and that was because he was handsome, stubbornly not interested in her, daring, and frighteningly smart. She liked Kaito because he scrambled her brains and made her scream in frustration. Not a very healthy kind of love, she knew, but that was her experience of it. That and the slavish love others felt for her due to the charm.

"Something like that, yes," Saguru encouraged.

"But there's nothing likeable about me," Akako argued with a roll of the eyes and a decided snort.

"You may not think so, but I'd disagree," he responded kindly. "You're not all bad, Akako-san, no matter what you tell yourself. You're no angel, of course, but your faults aren't as bad as all that either. You just can't see the good in yourself…or you _won't_ see it. Not that I have any room to speak as I'm quite the same way, but…"

She sighed, leaning against the railing once more and looking out at the overcast sky.

"You _are_ kind," he stressed. "You have the ability to be loving and thoughtful. The problem is that you're afraid to let others see who you really are because you're afraid that they'll think you're weak and try to take advantage of you. You don't let people in because you're afraid of giving them the power to hurt you. It's easier for you to be—forgive me—'the immoral vixen' or 'that scheming viper' than it is to be the girl who loves animals, longs for real friends, and just wants to be loved and cared for…. Just like it's easier for me to be 'that egotistical, know-it-all' than the suicidal rich boy from a broken home."

Akako's breath caught in her lungs. Her heart ached, and her stomach twisted itself into painful knots. He _knew_. He'd been paying such close attention to her, looking past the pretty face and the haughty attitude and really _seeing_ all those things she had tried to hide.

A twang of guilt echoed through her bones because she had never troubled herself to truly look at _him_. She had never seen past that thin, peeling papier-mâché mask he had desperately pasted on. She had never bothered.

Was it too late now to try?

She slowly turned to study his weary, troubled face and tentatively asked, "You say you care for me a little, but…do you think you could care more?"

He shrugged. "If I let myself. If I didn't think it an exercise in bang-your-head-against-the-wall futility." He drew his eyes away from the scenery, fixing them on her in suspicion and curiosity. "Why?"

She held his gaze as long as he could stand looking at her. "Because you're right. Everyone else only loves me when they look at me. I'm manipulating their emotions with my charm, and none of it's real. They don't care about my thoughts or feelings or interests. They don't want to have a real conversation with me. Who cares about having the whole world in love with you when it's not actually love but only a trick? None of it's real, and that's not good enough anymore. You were right, Saguru-kun. I want more. I'll…try to deserve it."

"You already deserve it," he insisted, but he had to look away, feeling her spell taking hold.

She frowned. It had always been amusing, watching Saguru blush and avoid her gaze, generally squirming in discomfort over the feelings her spell aroused in him, but at a time like this, when they were having such a serious discussion, there was nothing funny about it. She wanted him to look at her, look her in the eye and tell her…she wasn't quite sure. She didn't entirely know what she was doing.

What exactly was she going to ask for from him? What did she want? Love. Protection, companionship, intellectual interchange…things she couldn't have if he turned into a babbling idiot every time he looked at her.

She didn't love him. Yet. But she felt that she could eventually. He was fairly handsome, a gentleman, intelligent, and he actively fought the effects of her love slave spell. He was different from other men—not in the same ways but still similar to how Kaito was different from other men. Given time and the opportunity, she felt that Hakuba Saguru too could scramble her brains…in a good way. If she let him.

"I'm going to release you," she decided.

He blinked, risking another look at her. "I'm sorry?"

"From the spell," she clarified, grabbing his hand and tracing some runes on the palm before he could object. She whispered the incantation, even though it made her lightheaded. She could feel her power leaving her as she chanted and traced, and then it was over, done, permanent. She reached out and grabbed at the railing for support.

Saguru stepped forward, catching her as she swooned. "Akako-san! Are you all right?" He searched her face in a panic.

Luckily, her cheeks were fast regaining their color, and a cocky smile was already tugging at her lips. "I'm fine," she assured. "That was an extremely powerful spell, so breaking even a piece of it took a lot of effort. But, see? I'm already better."

"Good," he breathed in relief as he examined her, studying her features more closely than he had ever been able to before. He neglected to release his supportive hold on her, keeping one hand on her low back and the other between her shoulder blades.

Akako smirked. "Aren't you going to ask me out now?"

He frowned, a little taken aback. "Did you want me to? I mean…are you willing to take me as an alternative to Kuroba?"

She shrugged. "If _you're_ willing to take _me_ as an alternative to Kaito. I think we can both agree that nothing is ever going to happen between either of us and him, and while I don't have any particularly strong feelings for you at the moment, I _do_ like you as a friend and think you're attractive. That's where these things ideally start from, right?"

He nodded.

"Then I'd like to try and see how things go," she declared. "They say that the more time you spend with someone, the more you grow to like them. I'm sure I could come to genuinely like you after we dated for a while. Would you be willing to bear with me until I developed feelings for you?" She tipped her head to the side and waited for his answer a little apprehensively.

Saguru smiled reassuringly. "Of course I would. Only there's just this one thing: don't think of yourself as a replacement or substitute for Kuroba. It's not like that."

A blush spread across her face in tandem with a dazzled smile as she nodded.

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "Then, Akako-san, would you go out with me?"

"Yes," she whispered, leaning in for a kiss.

She was surprised to find his lips pressing to her forehead instead of her own.

He caressed her cheek, pushing back her hair as he smiled down at her. "You shouldn't kiss a man you don't love," he gently chided. "And, as a rule, I don't kiss until I've been dating a person for some months."

Akako raised an eyebrow at this. "Have you _ever_ kissed anyone?" she wondered.

He shook his head, but his smile never faltered. "I know it's old-fashioned, but I whole-heartedly believe it's better this way."

She hummed thoughtfully. "How many is 'some months'?"

"Two or three?" he replied sheepishly. "Do you know, they used to wait until they were engaged or even married before they would kiss? Two or three months isn't so long compared to that."

She shook her head slowly, gently smiling at her new boyfriend. "Whatever you're comfortable with," she resolved, reasoning that he probably knew better than she did when it came to healthy relationships. "So when we get back from this trip, you and I will go out to lunch, go see movies, and all that other typical dating stuff, and then in two to three months, you'll kiss me?"

"Only if you show some evidence of having fallen in love with me," he corrected with a mischievous grin, leaning in and giving her cheek a kiss. "For now, I'm going back to sleep, and I wish you the best of luck with your mermaid hunt. Sweet dreams, Akako-san."

"Sweet dreams," she echoed, watching his back as he went.

She turned to look out at the dark ocean once more, smiling and thinking that she may just be able to love him after all. Or at the very least, learn from him how to love herself. And hopefully she'd be able to teach him to love himself a little more as well, at least to the point where he no longer felt the need to keep a knife in his desk drawer or peek over the edge of rooftops for comfort.

Akako took a deep breath and let it out slowly, returning to the girls' sleeping quarters. Her head was too full of important things that she needed to puzzle out. The mermaid hunt would have to wait until another night.

The

End


End file.
